Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:

‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.’

The Brothers Grimm. “Rapunzel.” Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Trans. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes.

Cast of Characters:

Kazuya KUJOU – A foreign student from an island country in the Orient; the protagonist of this volume.
Victorique – A girl who possesses a wellspring of wisdom.
Gréville DE BLOIS – A police inspector.
Avril BRADLEY – An exchange student from England.
Cécile – A teacher.

GosickS I — The Reaper Who Comes in Spring

Prologue

Within a tiny body dwelled a certain “thing.”
And so, for quite a long time, the people of this country were not aware of its existence.

That “thing” took on the form of a small girl.
And so n.o.body noticed it.
Under luxurious frills and lace, under layers upon layers upon layers as endless as your dreams—
Slept a peculiar kind of darkness.

A labyrinth.
That terrifying mind, capable of changing history upon walking its first step—
Within the little girl named Victorique, breathing a quiet sigh.

Victorique’s mind was enormous and mystifying, an intricate labyrinth tinged in the color of night. Not only was no one able to understand it, no one was allowed to even catch a glimpse of it. Instead, she had always been like a lonely king, with neither subjects nor a domain, and yet possessing vast lands. Endowed with extensive knowledge and a “wellspring of wisdom,” Victorique suffered from constant boredom. And so, secluding herself in a library tower that soared to the sky, she ceaselessly read books, and for quite a long time was visited by no one.

As a certain woman who knew her well once said, “To be bored must surely mean the same as being lonely….”

But—-

Now at last, a single va.s.sal had finally come to present himself.

This va.s.sal was a small boy with black hair. Born in a faraway land, his skin an unfamiliar color, he bore a kind, and yet somehow stubborn countenance. His name was Kazuya Kujou, and he had come from a great distance, crossing the seas. And he climbed the library tower, until finally….

He met that girl.

The year was 1924.

In a corner of Europe, adjacent to the French, Swiss, and Italian borders, was Sauvure, a small country that nonetheless prided itself on its long history. If its Mediterranean coast, known as a summer resort for the n.o.bility, was Sauvure’s majestic entryway, then the heart of the Alps could be called its secret attic, slumbering within a grand castle. At the foot of the mountains stood St. Marguerite’s School, a prestigious inst.i.tution dedicated to educating the children of the aristocracy.

While the mysterious girl Victorique, also known as the Grey Wolf, was still secluded within the library tower of that school, the foreign student Kazuya Kujou had arrived from a certain country in the Orient.

And on a certain day in the springtime of that year, this girl and boy just so happened to meet….